My Sweetest Downfall
by rightersblock
Summary: A oneshot of Temperance's thoughts about Booth. BB


So its been a ridiculously long time since I wrote anything. I blame my professors. Who knew they would give you so much to do in law school? Sheesh. I hope to get back to my other stories somewhat soon, but I was in the mood to write something random tonight, and therefore, here you go. This story is based on the song _Samson_ by Regina Spektor. I recommend listening to it, not just because it goes with this story (I might have even lifted a few lines of it for this story...) but also because it's just a great song in general. As a further disclaimer, since my schedule has been, well, ridiculous, I haven't seen Bones since...um, season two, I think. As a result, this is probably in no way in character. I'm really sorry about that...take this an odd digression, a new (hopefully) view of Temperance Brennan. Of course, if it's just so ridiculous that you hate it, you can feel free to let me know. This is told from Temperance's point of view about (can you guess?) Booth. Hope you like it.

Oh, and I don't own Bones. If I did, I probably wouldn't eat Cheerios for dinner so much. Or maybe I would, they are quite delicious...

* * *

I know. Let's say that straight off—_I know_. I've known for a long time; it's not like it's that much of a secret. No one is in the dark at this point. We all know. And I know. I do.

People assume that I don't know, which I find somewhat amusing. I know that I can be disconnected, that I can be naïve, that I miss social things that other people easily see. That being said, I should add that I'm not stupid. And I'm not blind. I know that he cares about me. That he has for a while now.

Full disclosure? I loved him first. Not from day one necessarily, but not long after that. He was infuriating. He was stubborn. He knew almost immediately what buttons to push to drive me insane. He knew how to be bored and engaged by my work at the same time. He invaded my personal space. He called me out when he disagreed with me about something. He was persistent, even when I did my best to discourage him. I couldn't _stand_ him. And one second after that realization, I had another—I couldn't get enough of him. And before he ever realized how he felt, and maybe before he even really felt it, I loved him.

That's what I hate about emotions—they aren't clean. They can't be understood. I've gone out with men much better suited to me than him. Men who wanted things that I wanted, men who had things in common with me, men who were kind and good—even a few who weren't. Out of that group, there are a few who are much more logical choices for me than him. But that's the irony, isn't it? They would be better on paper...but he's all I want. It's like a cheap romance novel, a mass market paperback with yellowing, torn pages and grimy cardstock cover. It's a story that everyone has heard so many times...too many times...girl meets boy, girl falls for boy, but girl can't have boy. So cliché. So predictable. And yet...and yet.

I can't be with him. I hate that fact more than I hate the fact that I'm now that clichéd paperback book damsel, simpering and whining in some corner. I _want_ to be with him—there's no use in denying it—but I _can't_ be. And it's not because we work together, or because we're friends, or because if it went badly it would destroy our friendship. It's not because I'm afraid of being hurt, or afraid of him being hurt. It's not even really because we want different things. It's because it would end.

I know, that sounds ridiculous, but it's true. There is no happily ever after for me with him. Regardless of whether or not that's an obtainable goal in general, I know it's not possible with him. I have no doubt that whatever we would have would be passionate. It would be consuming. It would be bliss, a narcotic, the most mind blowing rush...but then? Then it would end.

It would end because we're alike in all the wrong ways, because we're the same in all the other wrong ways. We're both so stubborn...it would kill either of us to give an inch. And that stubbornness wouldn't preclude a functional relationship if we could both learn enough give and take so that we could both have our wins...but eventually the score becomes unbalanced. And then you both start counting the losses. And soon everyone loses.

We're too independent. I don't think that either of us can openly handle the co-dependency. Friendship co-dependency is okay—it's controllable. We can dip into the reservoirs of one another when things are truly too much, and in a way we can handle that. But on daily basis? Admitting that we need each other everyday? Maybe we could do that...but we would always struggle. We might love each other fiercely, but we would both clawing for a way out, for air.

He believes in absolutes. So do I. Unfortunately, they are absolutes in all the wrong places. He believes in God, in goodness, in truth, in this..._hope_ that I times I find incomprehensible. I think it's a beautiful idea. I love that he can believe it. But I can't. I believe in science, in facts. I believe that people are just people..."neither beasts nor gods," as they say. He wants children, a picket fence, summers splashing in the hose with a dog before grilling hot dogs. I wish I could want that too...it's so pure. Clean, in a way that so few things are. It's simple. With me? It's never that simple.

He's Samson—the warrior, the protector, the man of god-like strength. To be with him, I would have to be his Delilah...but what if the story could be rewritten? What if we gave up the ruse and gave in. We were just together, rationality be damned. What if all those things that would destroy us, that would tear us apart, were reduced to a single, tangible thing, like his hair...

I can see him. He wakes up in the middle of the night, goes for a glass of water, but doesn't stay away too long. He comes back to bed. Comes back to me. Wraps back around me, and we're both back asleep almost immediately... In the morning, the light would hit his hair again. It would highlight how this couldn't work, how we were wrong, how it was all going to come apart. He'd kiss me...the kind of kiss that makes your lungs burn. That makes your mind go blank. That kind of kiss that makes you stop caring about anything else. And we would forget...we would forget to hate each other, to fight with each other, to drive each other away, and we would just fall into each other. Like nothing else in the world mattered, because, in fact, at that moment, nothing else in the world _did_ matter. We would hide in each other all day, wishing it all away...

I would pry the secret from his lips. He would whisper them to me, in shuddering despair...breathe them into my ear with an aching whimper..._the hair_...his breath on me, our arms entwined, crashing into each other..._it's the hair..._

I'd cut his hair myself that night, a pair of dull scissors in the yellow light. And he'd tell me that I'd done right...he'd tell me that it was okay...he'd hold me and tell me that now everything would be alright. He'd touch my face, and he would tell me I was beautiful. _It was right...it was right..._and he'd kiss me, and he'd kiss me, until the light was orange and pink with morning, and the first burst of the sun showed that his hair was gone...and then the history books would forget about us, and the Bible wouldn't mention us, not even once...

But that's not how the story goes, is it? I'm not religious, but this is one story that I do remember the ending too...how Samson was taken the morning after his hair was cut, how he was chained, blinded, robbed of what made him who he was. And then how, in a final burst of strength, he let out a soul tearing shriek as he used the chains that bound him to bring down the columns of the temple, killing himself in the process.

And that's how we would end. We would end up apart, and then we would have nothing. I wouldn't have the chance at one day being with him. I wouldn't have the hope that one day it would all somehow be different. I may not have much now, but it's something. It's small, and it's not everything that I want, but I keep telling myself that it's better than the alternative, better than watching the columns fall, crushing us both and leaving us lost forever...

I know all of this. I know why it wouldn't work. I know how it would end. But I still want him. I want to touch him. I want to rest my hands on his shoulders. I want trace the lines of his face. I want _him_. And sometimes I think it might be worth it, it might be worth spending a few moments out of this agony, wrapped wholly in the euphoria of him...and when the columns come crashing down, it would be little more than my sweetest downfall, my inevitable ending that is somehow vindicated, somehow okay just for those few moments when he looked at me, when turned the light of his attention on _me_...when he loved me...

I know I can't be with him. I like to believe that I could survive the ending that would actually come, but the truth is I know that I couldn't really. I know that it would be the end of me. And so I know that things aren't going to change...we'll be friends. We'll take care of each other. We'll take what we have, meager as it may be, and we'll live with it. Because in the end, a piece of him is better than none of him. What I have can be enough for me. I can live with it, mainly because I couldn't live with the alternative. So we go on. We pretend we don't care. And we hope that one day that lie will become true, because it's not worth the risk.

And yet...and yet.

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Feel free to let me know what you think


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